


Another Got-Dang Newsies College AU

by lilacsilver



Category: Newsies!: the Musical - Fierstein/Menken
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Drabble Collection, F/M, M/M, this is its own work now
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-30
Updated: 2019-09-28
Packaged: 2020-02-10 08:46:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 26
Words: 8,653
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18657025
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lilacsilver/pseuds/lilacsilver
Summary: In drabble collection form because I have the attention span of a caffeinated hamster.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Some of you might recognize these. I moved them over from my first drabble collection for organizational purposes.
> 
> If you're new here, I hope you don't hate this.

Katherine’s day had started…poorly. Her alarm hadn’t gone off and she’d woken to discover she only had five minutes to get ready for her morning class. In her rush to get out the door, she’d grabbed the first pair of shoes she saw.

Now…well. Now she’s sprawled across grass still wet with last night’s rain, the contents of her messenger bag all over the place, and she’s going to have to explain to her roommate why she borrowed a pair of heels only to return one of them broken. A nearby squirrel seems to be laughing at her, and several nearby students definitely are.

And then they’re not. Something wipes the amusement right off their faces and causes them to scatter, and a shadow falls across her.

“’Ey, Pulitzer, you all right?”

…Right. Because her humiliation couldn’t possibly be complete without the sudden appearance of Jack Kelly and his friends. Well, at least Davey’s helpful, gathering up scattered notebooks and pens and highlighters and putting them all back in her bag where they belong.

Rather than answer Jack, she just buries her face in the grass and groans. Her ankle really fucking hurts and she’d like the ground to open up and swallow her so she doesn’t have to deal with anything that’s going on right now, thanks. Especially the hurried whispers from the boys behind her.

“Pulitzer,” Jack says. “Gonna need you to sit up an’ look at me, and try not ta put any weight on ya foot.”

Of course, of _course_ , she only successfully manages to do half of that. The moment her foot touches the ground, she has to bite back a scream. Tears blur her vision, or maybe it’s the pain that’s blinding her, or maybe both. Oh, god, it hurts it hurts it _hurts_ –

“—itzer. Katherine!” She latches onto the sound of Jack’s voice, because he’s never called her by her first name before. She’s always Pulitzer, sometimes Red, but never Katherine. Not to him.

“Breathe,” he says, low and soothing. “In an’ out…yeah. There ya go. Y’r ankle’s def’nitely broken, but Davey’s gonna call 911 – “ he breaks off to gesture at Davey, presumably telling him to get on with it – “an’ we’re gonna get ya sorted out. All right?”

“But…but I have class,” she says nonsensically. “I have to go to class.”

“Y’r not goin’ anywhere but the ER, Red,” Jack tells her. “Ya can ask somebody for their notes _after_ ya get seen to.”

The rest of the morning is a whirl of nurses and X-rays and pain meds and calling her parents to sort out the insurance, but Jack doesn’t go far from her side.


	2. Chapter 2

Getting around campus on crutches isn’t the easiest task, but Katherine refuses to let a little thing like a broken ankle get in her way. It helps that Jack Kelly, former flirty thorn in her side and current new maybe-friend, maybe-more, always seems to be nearby on the rare occasions she can’t manage on her own.

Over the past few weeks she’s had to rethink her previous assessment of him. He’s loyal, fiercely so, to those who earn it, and always has time for his friends.

No, _friends_ seems somehow inadequate. They’re his brothers, really. The family he chose. She’s seen more than enough of the boys since breaking her ankle to know that’s how he sees them, and how they see him and each other. How _she_ fits in – if she truly does, if this won’t all vanish the moment her cast comes off in a few days – she _doesn’t_ know.

With a sigh, she pushes the button to activate the automatic doors of the library. Revising the paper that’s due next week means a few hours of not dwelling on her insecurity where Jack is concerned. And by then she should be over it, right? Right.

\--

Except she’s not. When she emerges from the library, her revisions are finished, the sun is setting, and her traitorous mind has hopped back on board the express train to Anxiety Town. Anxietyville? Whatever. Damn Jack and his stupid, handsome face for doing this to her. Damn him for…for sitting on a bench outside the building, for breaking into a grin when he spots her, for just existing in general.

 She passes him as fast as her crutches will let her go, but a sick feeling fills her when that genuine smile slips right off his face. It stops her cold.

“Somethin’ wrong, Pulitzer?”

“You are,” she whispers.

“Whassat?”

“I…I said _you are!_ You’re what’s wrong!” She turns on him in time to see the hurt flash across his face before he goes deliberately blank, and tries to fix what she’s just broken. “When, when I broke my ankle and you helped me and came with me to the ER – we weren’t friends, but you stayed.”

“Was the right thing ta do,” he says.

“Now we’re – I don’t know _what_ we are, but I don’t want to lose it.”

“What makes ya think ya will?” It’s not until he gets up and reaches out and rubs a thumb across her cheek that she realizes she’s crying.

“I always do,” she says quietly. “I always have. The people who are important to me, they always leave.”

The shadow of a cocky grin touches his mouth. “Important, huh?”

She laughs wetly, shaking her head. “Of course that’s what you took from that. Yes, you are. You – you could be _necessary_ , given enough time, and that scares the hell out of me.”

“How long you been holdin’ onto all this?” he asks, low and soft.

“I don’t know when it started,” she says. “With you, I mean. All the rest? That’s been my, my whole life. I just – I – “

She breaks off, choked with tears. She’s already said far more than she meant to, and it’s too late to take it back, and Jack’s closer than he was a moment ago.

“Kathy, baby,” he murmurs, just before his lips touch hers and. _Oh._

It feels like home.


	3. Chapter 3

The Saturday night after finals are at last over, the boys and Katherine have crammed into Jack and Davey’s apartment to say good riddance to the semester and celebrate the fact that they’ve all passed their classes. She’s curled up on one end of the couch, leaning back against Jack’s chest and laughing at Race’s jokes and willfully ignoring the little seed of darkness at the back of her mind. This is a party, dammit, and she’s not going to let old sorrow ruin it for her or anyone else.

And then her phone rings, and her mother’s name comes up on the screen, and the little seed sprouts and spreads the pain she wants so badly to forget. She excuses herself and takes her phone down the hall to Jack’s room.

She could just let it ring, let her mother leave a voicemail, and then go back to the party like nothing’s wrong. Go back and keep laughing at the stories she’s heard a hundred times before, throw chips at Race and Al when they start swapping increasingly awful puns, kiss Jack, start the Shitty Movies marathon Elmer had proposed at the beginning of the night. She could do all of that.

She accepts the call and puts the phone to her ear.

“What do you want, Mother?”

“ _You know what, Kitty. Have you been keeping your appointments with Dr. Matthews? It’s important to get ahead of things this time of year._ ”

“Things? You’re calling Lucy’s death a _thing?_ It’s not some _chore_ that I have to deal with!”

“ _That’s not what I meant, Kitty, dear. You know how you get in the summer. Have you even told that boy of yours about any of this?”_

“He has a name, Mother, and I’d really rather you use it. But no, I haven’t told him yet.”

“ _What are you waiting for? Him to find you still in bed in the middle of the afternoon, telling him you wish you were dead, too? Talk to him, Kitty, for your own sake **and** his.”_

Katherine hangs up on her and puts her head in her hands. Her mother is right; she has to say something to Jack before the summer unfolds and brings back all the shit she spends the rest of the year suppressing. He deserves to know.

Not tonight. She’ll bring it up tomorrow. Tonight she’s going to go rejoin the party and not spoil anybody’s fun with her problems.

That plan lasts exactly as long as it takes for her to step into the hallway and run right into Jack, apparently on his way to check on her.

“Fancy meetin’ you here,” he smiles. “Everything all right?”

She looks down at her feet. “No, I…can we talk?”

They go back into his room. He sits down on the end of his bed, watching her pace a hole in the floor. And then she starts.

\--

_Six-thirty PM. Lucy should be home from shopping with her friends by now. Dinner’s almost ready. Katherine finishes setting the table and goes to remind her younger siblings to wash their hands before the meal._

_Someone knocks on the front door and she detours to answer. A police officer is on the other side. Her father emerges from his office and sends her off; he’ll take care of this._

_She’s still in earshot when the officer utters the words ‘hit and run,’ and ‘your daughter,’ and ‘I’m sorry.’_

_She screams. For her sister – her best friend – for the ugly, unfair cruelty of it all. She screams and doesn’t stop and her mother is there and Lucy isn’t. Never will be again. She’ll never go to law school like she intended, never find someone and get married and have two wonderful, precocious children like she wanted, never, never, never._

_Every night for months after, Katherine goes to bed hoping her heart will just stop while she sleeps and she won’t have to wake up to another day without Lucy._

\--

When she’s done, the apartment is utterly silent, and she knows the boys have heard every word she meant for only Jack to hear. The bedroom door is open, and this place is smaller than a damned shoebox. Of course they heard.

She sinks to the floor, all her strength gone. Jack is frozen on the bed, and that’s okay, she thinks distantly. She’s not sure she can handle being touched right now.


	4. Chapter 4

A week passes, then another. Katherine doesn’t see Jack, but it’s hard enough just getting up and going to work every day. The effort it takes to keep her façade of cheerful professionalism from breaking down in front of her superiors at the _Times_ doesn’t leave her much energy for anything else.

Still. He could make the first move. She’s only gone and bared her soul, and he’s suddenly nowhere to be found. _Way to go, Katherine, you’ve scared him off. He’s found out what a basket case you are and doesn’t want you anymore._

She does see the boys around, though. Sean, of all people, shows up at her desk one day, drops a grease-spotted McDonald’s bag on it, and leaves without a word. The fries are cold and the burger has too much ketchup on it, and there’s a note inside in his spiky handwriting that says _if you tell anyone about this I’ll rip out your spleen,_ but she’s not going to complain about food she didn’t have to pay for.

Race and Mush drop by her apartment on her day off and drag her out to Central Park to watch them fail at doing cartwheels.

“Grief needs sunshine,” Race intones, and for a moment she wonders if body-snatching aliens landed in the city when she wasn’t looking. Her worries prove unfounded, because shortly afterward he tries to walk down a hill on his hands and topples over, rolling the rest of the way. It makes her laugh until her stomach aches.

She hugs them both tightly before they all part ways, whispering her gratitude in Race’s ear. He waves her off, but she catches him grinning as he turns to go.

\--

At the end of the third week of radio silence, Jack finally shows his face.

“’m sorry,” he says. “I just…listenin’ ta you that night brought back a lotta stuff o’ my own, an’ I wasn’t gonna pile my shit on top o’ what you’s dealin’ with. I shoulda told ya so, an’ I didn’t, an’ that’s on me.”

“It’s okay,” she tells him. “Unless you’re planning to just ditch me again, in which case it’s not.”

“No! I ain’t gonna make that mistake twice. I promise, I’s gonna be better from now on. Won’t be doin’ shit what makes Becks smack me ‘cross the back o’ the head an’ call me a dumbass anymore.”

Katherine lets out a giggle at the mental image. Davey’s girlfriend catches insects under cups and carries them outside, spends all of her limited free time volunteering at one shelter or another, and only raises her voice to sing. Never, in all the time Katherine’s known her, has Rebecca Lewis been anything but sweet and kind.

“God, the boys have corrupted her.”

“Eh, I don’t see the problem. Knocked some sense inta me, didn’t she?”

“Well, when you put it like that…” Katherine steps into Jack’s space, wrapping her arms around his waist and just holding on. His arms encircle her, and he kisses the top of her head.

“I really am sorry, baby,” he says into her hair. “Shoulda been ‘ere for you.”

“Shh,” she soothes, leaning up to kiss him properly. “You’re here now.”


	5. Chapter 5

Jack stays true to his word. Katherine lets go of what he’s done because it’s easier than not, and because he’s doing everything in his power to make up for it. Even when they can’t find the time to see each other, he calls during her lunch breaks to check in. When they do get time together, he’s – somehow – more tactile than he’s ever been before. She’s used to him wrapping his arms around her from behind, or tugging her into his lap during movie nights, but it’s almost like it hurts him not to be touching her now.

Truth be told, it hurts her, too. She wants the warmth of his callused hand just resting on the back of her neck, mostly grounding her in the present.

It doesn’t always work. She slips away sometimes, and it takes more than his touch to pull her out of the deep sea of her heart.

_“ **Kathy, darlin’, look at me**.” She’s seven years old, playing in her bedroom. Lucy, nine, is supposed to come and tell her **Mama wants to talk to you, Kitty**. That’s how this memory is supposed to go. They’re supposed to leave the room and walk down the hall to their mother’s room together, dreading her judgment over the broken vase downstairs. But Lucy speaks with Jack’s voice…_

…and Katherine blinks. She’s on the couch at Jack and Davey’s apartment, Jack’s hands cupping her face as he kneels in front of her. Everyone else is trying to pretend they aren’t watching her, but save for Sean, not a one of them has much in the way of a poker face.

“You back with us now, baby?” Jack asks.

“Fuck you for asking me that, Jack Kelly.” It’s not what she means to say, but she’s suddenly, incandescently angry. “Three weeks, you…you _selfish fucking bastard._ Where were you? _Where?!_ ”

She distantly recognizes the sounds of their friends fleeing the scene. Jack’s eyes harden and his worried frown twists into a scowl.

“I told you I had shit o’ my own ta deal with. I thought we was past this! I ‘pologized for it all, didn’t I? You said it was okay!”

“Yeah, well, turns out it wasn’t! I didn’t know what you were doing, except maybe quitting on me for being a goddamn mess, Jack!”

He gets up abruptly and storms off, slamming his bedroom door. A terrible silence descends on the apartment, and Katherine begins to cry.

It’s a long time before he emerges, coming to kneel before her again.

“I would never quit on ya, Katherine. You an’ me, I think we’s the real deal, an’ just ‘cause I screwed up don’t mean I don’t love you.”

He tilts forward and rests his forehead on her knees, and she can’t not run a hand over and through his messy hair the way she’s done a thousand times in the past.

“I love you, too,” she whispers, and he looks up at her, relieved, and she finally lets herself believe things will be all right.


	6. Chapter 6

“I wanna tell you why I did what I did,” Jack says. It’s been a few days since Katherine chewed him out, and things are still fragile between them. He figures it’ll be like that for a while, but maybe he can help it along.

“You don’t have to – "

“Yeah, I do,” he interrupts her. “You deserve ta know.”

He focuses on the wall, past her left shoulder. If he meets her eyes he’ll never be able to get it all out, and she should know his whole truth the way he now knows hers.

“I grew up in the system,” he says. “At one point I was in this group home. Shitty place, but least I got fed an’ had somewhere ta sleep at night.”

Katherine’s hand covers his.

“Anyways,” he goes on. “I musta been nine, ten years old when this kid named Charlie moved in. He was in a wheelchair, an’ I never asked why. None o’ my business, y’know? Wasn’t long ‘fore we was thick as thieves. Like brothers.”

He has to stop there and just breathe for a few minutes. The place in his heart where Charlie still resides is scarred over by time, but even so it hurts like hell most days. Katherine looks like she wants to say something, but keeps quiet, and he’s grateful for it.

“One day a couple years later I woke up and Charlie weren’t there. _Snyder_ ,” he spits the name, “said he’d been adopted, but I woulda known about it. Charlie woulda told me. The other boys – Mush was one of ‘em – was too scared ta speak up in front o’ Snyder, but later they said they’d seen him throwin’ out Charlie’s stuff in the middle o’ the night.”

Katherine makes a noise that’s caught somewhere between fury and fear, like she’s reached a conclusion she wishes she hadn’t.

“After you told me ‘bout Lucy, I started thinkin’ on all that again. I went pokin’ around on the Internet ta see if I could figure it out, or find him, or…I don’t know what.”

“Did you?” Katherine’s voice is hard as steel, and he knows it’s because she’s trying not to cry. She sounded the same way on that night almost a month ago.

He pulls his phone out of his pocket and slides it across the table to her. She stares down at the screen for a moment, her eyes going wide, and the sound she makes is barely recognizable as coming from a human throat.

_Remains of missing boy found after seven years._

The article, dated three months ago, is a terse recitation of the facts. It reduces Charlie Morris to a fucking statistic, and Snyder to just another violent asshole. Katherine looks up at him, and instead of the tears he expects, her eyes are full of white-hot rage.

“This is all they wrote? Nobody even cared long enough to write more than two badly-edited paragraphs? It doesn’t even sound like the police bothered with a full investigation!”

“’S how the world works, ain’t it,” Jack says. “Nobody gives a shit about the kids in the system. If one goes missin’, well, it’s one less mouth fer taxpayers ta feed.”

Katherine growls. “I’ll – I’ll _make_ them give a shit. Your brother deserves better than this _garbage._ ”

She kisses him hard before she storms out of the apartment, a one-woman army on a mission.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm the Worst.


	7. Chapter 7

**Ace of Hearts:** _(03:39) Jack_

**Ace of Hearts:** _(03:39) Jackie_

**Ace of Hearts:** _(03:39) darling_

**Ace of Hearts:** _(03:40) schnookums_

**Ace of Hearts:** _(03:40) Jackie-kins_

**Ace of Hearts:** _(03:42) my love_

**Ace of Hearts:** _(03:45) Jack answer your goddamn phone_

**Jack <3: ** _(03:50) what did you do_

**Ace of Hearts:** _(03:50) funny story, that_

**Jack <3:** _(03:51) Katherine Ethel Pulitzer._

**Ace of Hearts:** _(03:52) I might have gotten myself sort of arrested for trespassing_

**Jack <3: ** _(03:52) what_

**Ace of Hearts:** _(03:53) at the group home_

**Jack <3: ** _(03:53) WHAT_

**Ace of Hearts:** _(03:54) it’s empty now, did you know_

**Ace of Hearts:** _(03:55) they shut it down after Snyder got charged_

**Jack <3: ** _(03:55) what in the hell is wrong with you_

**Jack <3: ** _(03:55) why would you go there_

**Ace of Hearts:** _(03:56) I’ll tell you after you come and get me_

**Ace of Hearts:** _(03:56) my brother arranged my bail but he won’t pick me up_

**Ace of Hearts:** _(03:57) he says he’s already doing me enough favors between bail and agreeing to explain to our parents_

**Jack <3: ** _(03:58) I’ll be there in 30 minutes_

**Ace of Hearts:** _(03:58) [heart-eyes emoji]_


	8. Chapter 8

“Go get in the shower,” Jack says. “Wash that place offa you.”

It’s the first thing he’s said to her since retrieving her from the precinct. Katherine goes, and wastes no time scrubbing away the dirt and dust and cobwebs she picked up from her ill-advised trip to the former Refuge for Boys. When she emerges from the bathroom, wrapped in a towel, she finds Jack rummaging through his dresser and grumbling to himself about needing to do laundry.

He’s shirtless, his jeans low on his hips, and given the circumstances she probably shouldn’t find that so enticing. It’s 5:30 in the morning and he’s pissed off, but heaven help her, she’s only human. He straightens up and looks at her.

“I didn’t tell ya about Charlie and the Refuge so’s ya could go off an’ do somethin’ stupid,” he growls. “Did you even tell anyone what you was up to, ‘cause ya sure didn’t bother ta tell me!”

“No,” she admits. “I just went.”

“I figured. Y’know, you got a lotta nerve screamin’ at me for not tellin’ you things, an’ then turnin’ right around an’ doin’ the exact same thing.”

“I’m sorry,” she whispers, lowering her head. “God, I’m sorry. I never should have gone.”

“Yeah, you got that right.” He moves past her and shuts the door, pressing a hand against it momentarily before he turns back toward her. “Dammit, Katherine.”

He crowds into her space, forcing her to look up. A callused hand sinks into her wet hair – not pulling, exactly, just…making sure she can’t look away from the question behind the shadows in his eyes. _Is this okay_ , he wants to know. She nods, and he pulls her into his arms for a kiss that leaves her breathless and shaky. His hand moves between them, loosening the towel and pushing it to the floor and then drifting lower, skilled fingers between her legs making her whimper.

“Easy, baby,” he laughs, low and sweet. “We’re just gettin’ started.”

He presses her back onto the bed, gentle even though she knows none of this erases his frustration with her. She thinks it’s his way of reassuring himself that she’s not hurt, she’s still here, the Refuge didn’t steal her from him too.

And then he ducks down to use his mouth and she stops thinking at all.

\--

Katherine’s asleep. Jack wishes he could sleep so easily. He looks at her – beloved and familiar and untroubled by bad dreams – and brushes a drying curl away from her face with a heavy sigh. It scares him, the way she’s willing to risk her safety and freedom for things most folks couldn’t care less about.

Terrifies him, really, if he’s honest with himself. Maybe they’re too young, too untested, to be all-in like this, but the thought of losing her is right there with the Refuge as one of his worst nightmares. On his better days, he can imagine her way down the line: forty years more experienced, sitting by his side and laughingly discouraging him from telling their grandkids his wilder stories.

Letting out another sigh, he crawls out of bed. She’ll want coffee when she wakes up, and he could use some now.


	9. Chapter 9

For all her bluster, Katherine hadn’t actually expected to be taken seriously. She’s only an intern for the _Times_ , after all – not a full-fledged journalist, not yet. But Denton’s sympathetic as well as helpful, letting her use his contacts to build her story.

Charlie’s story. She spends weeks chasing leads, adding what little they’re willing to say to what Jack gave her. Piecing it all together takes longer, because August comes and brings the new semester with it, and she has almost no free time. A sentence here and there is all she can manage, usually just before collapsing into bed much later than she ought.

But in time she thinks she’s got it, handing the first draft to Denton a week before Christmas. He looks it over, his face giving nothing away as he makes notes in the margins…and then he nods.

“Polish it up and I’ll make sure you get the space,” he says.

\--

It runs in early January. Her vicious indictment of the system that failed Charlie Morris so completely gets people talking, but the outrage wanes far too quickly.

“You can’t win them all, Katherine,” her father says. “And you can’t force people to care. All you can do is put the story out there and leave the rest to the readers.”

He looks tired, and far older than his sixty years. She’s struck with a sudden, horrible feeling of finality that drives her to hug him before she takes her leave. He hugs her back after a moment, patting her awkwardly on the shoulder.

“I am proud of you,” he tells her as she goes.


	10. Chapter 10

Allowing her family to meet the boys is either the best or the worst idea Katherine’s ever had, but it’s too late to take it back now. For reasons known only to himself and maybe Mother, her father had scaled back the annual Independence Day party in the Hamptons to a much more relaxed affair at about the same time he’d entered one of his sporadic periods of taking a genuine interest in her life.

“You should bring your friends, Katherine,” he’d said. “I’d like to meet them.”

So she’d extended the invitation, and everyone had accepted. And now here they are, winning over her parents and siblings with cheeky grins and tall tales. The look in Mother’s eye suggests she’s just unofficially adopted a horde of new sons. Father, Ralph, and Davey are deep in a discussion about the impacts of Prohibition on modern society. Joe, Jr. is laughing at some story of Elmer’s. Race is arguing with Connie and Herbert about which Sondheim musical is the best, with occasional (unhelpful) input from Edie and Romeo.

Katherine meets Jack’s eye across the room and smiles at him, which is apparently all it takes for him to abandon his conversation with Sean mid-sentence and make his way over to her. Sean rolls his eyes and goes to back up Race’s assertions about _Sunday in the Park with George_. (Or possibly to take Connie’s side and argue for _West Side Story_ , who knows).

Jack takes her hand in his. “When ya said we was invited out here, I wasn’t sure it was a great idea ta come. Guess I was wrong.”

“I was kinda worried myself. Some optimists we are, huh?”

He laughs. Outside, over the water, the fireworks begin. One by one everybody abandons their conversations and heads outside to watch.


	11. Chapter 11

Albert’s hiding in the kitchen. He knows it’s rude and that he ought to go back out to the massive living room where everyone else is gathered, but in here there’s no one to judge him for feeling so awkward and uneasy.

Nobody else seems to be having that problem. They’re all having a grand old time, finding common ground with Katherine’s family. It’s just him who’s got hang-ups he can’t seem to shake. With a sigh, he snags a cube of cheese from the tray on the counter and pops it in his mouth; so long as he’s stuck here, he might as well enjoy the food.

Three more cheese cubes and one chocolate-covered strawberry later, Mrs. Pulitzer enters the kitchen and smiles at him.

“We were wondering where you’d gotten to, Albert,” she says. “I see you’ve already started on the snacks.”

He hides the evidence of his pilfered strawberry behind his back a little guiltily. Mrs. P. just laughs, leaning against the kitchen island.

“Edie and I didn’t make all this food just so it could sit around and look pretty.” She loads a potato chip with spinach dip, but doesn’t eat it straight away. “Now, what’s got you hiding in my kitchen, hmm?”

He wants to shrug it off. Wants to lie. Wants to pretend he’s fine. In the end, he does none of those things.

“I just…I ain’t used ta this kinda thing. Hangin’ out in the Hamptons ain’t really my idea o’ fun.”

“But you came anyway.” She pops the chip in her mouth, brown eyes – just like her daughter’s, or maybe Kath’s eyes are Mrs. P.’s eyes – fixed on him.

“Well, yeah. Everyone else was set on comin’ here, an’ it’s no fun bein’ by y’self on a holiday.”

 Her gaze sharpens. “By yourself? What about your family?”

“Ain’t got any. The fellas -- ” he jerks a thumb in the direction of the living room “ – they’re the closest I got.”

And there’s the pity he’s come to expect, but never wants to see. It’s just what folks do when he so much as hints at his time in the foster care system, and he hates it. Mrs. P. seems to sense that, or maybe she’s uncomfortable with the topic, because she turns and grabs a tray of cookies.

“Help me carry some of this out there, won’t you?”

He picks up the tray of strawberries and follows her. Back in the living room, everyone descends on the food like they haven’t eaten in days; he goes back and forth to the kitchen to bring out more, until at last he’s able to take a seat in the corner of the room.


	12. Chapter 12

**_CHAT GROUP: SECOND TO NONE_ **

**Spot Remover:** we got urgent business to discuss

 **Spot Remover:** which one of you degenerates changed my username

 **Jackie Boy:** i didn’t know you knew words like degenerate

 **Spot Remover:** watch it kelly

 **Domino Sugar:** that was me

 **Domino Sugar:** I thought it would be funny

 **Domino Sugar:** you really shouldn’t leave your phone unattended btw

 **Davey Jones’ Locker:** Rebecca no

 **Domino Sugar:** Rebecca yes >:D

 **Churchill Downs:** good one becks

 **Spot Remover:** traitor

 **Spot Remover:** tony you’re supposed to be on my side

 **Uptown Girl:** and you’re supposed to be the nice one, Becca

 **Uptown Girl:** spending time with us has ruined you

 **Domino Sugar:** aw, but I like you guys

 **West Coast Jacobs:** why am I part of this chat

 **West Coast Jacobs:** not that I don’t love reading about how you’ve all corrupted my brother’s girlfriend at six in the morning because you people forget how time zones work

 **West Coast Jacobs:** but I don’t even go here

**West Coast Jacobs has left the group**

**Spot Remover** is now **King of Brooklyn**

 **Glue Stick:** wait we can change our names

 **Glue Stick:** Al, you asshole, you said I was stuck with this one

 **Muckety-Muck:** ha ha ha

 **Glue Stick** is now **Albert DaSilva is a dirty liar**

 **Muckety-Muck:** hey!

 **Uptown Girl:** boys, behave or I’ll un-invite you from the Pulitzer New Year’s Eve bash

 **Uptown Girl:** my mother will be so disappointed if Al’s not there

 **Uptown Girl:** he’s her favorite son now, it’s driving my actual brothers nuts

 **Muckety-Muck:** sorry sis

 **Uptown Girl:** Elmer?

 **Albert DaSilva is a dirty liar** is now **Glue Stick**

 **Glue Stick:** sorry

 **Team Mom:** It’s always nice when I don’t have to mediate. Good job, Katherine.

 **Uptown Girl:** I learned from the best.

 **Jackie Boy:** Miss Medda! thought you took yourself out of the group

 **Team Mom:** If I didn’t pay attention to this chat I’d never know what you boys and girls get up to. You never call, you never visit.

 **Jackie Boy:** me and Kath are free for dinner this weekend

 **Jackie Boy:** I think

 **Uptown Girl:** we are if Saturday works for you, Miss Medda

 **Team Mom:** I’m clearing my schedule as we speak. I’ll see you two then.


	13. Chapter 13

“Why d’you wanna _make_ dinner when there’s a perfectly good selection o’ delivery menus on the fridge?”

Katherine sighs the put-upon sigh of a person who’s already explained herself several times. “Because you need to eat something other than sweet and sour chicken every night, Jack.”

She goes back to the business of sautéing mushrooms and ignores his accusations of slander.

“I don’t get that every night! Sometimes we order pizza.”

“Not helping your case, Jackie-kins.” She adds garlic and stirs the mushrooms for another minute, turns off the heat, and checks the pasta. It’s not quite done, so she leaves it be and turns to Jack. “I’m doing this because I love you and I’m concerned about your cholesterol levels.”

“…You used butter with those mushrooms.”

Well, he’s got her there. “Home-cooked food is miles better than takeout. You’ll see.”


	14. Chapter 14

“And this one’s for Jack,” Ralph says, passing a large wrapped box his way.

“You didn’t hafta get me anythin’,” Jack tells the room at large. “Just bein’ invited for Christmas is enough.”

Katherine pats his knee. She knows he feels out of place here in the brownstone where she grew up, and guilty for showing up empty-handed (even though he actually didn’t, because she’d put both their names on the gifts she’d bought). She’ll give him all the time he needs later to deal with that, but for now…

“Go on, open it,” she urges. He peels back the silver paper to reveal a set of paints that – going by the look on his face, because she sure doesn’t know the difference – is far more expensive and higher quality than he’s used to.

“Wow,” he says. “Thanks.”

Mother beams at him. “Make something wonderful. That’ll be all the thanks we need.”

“I will,” he tells her, so earnest and happy that Katherine just has to kiss him.


	15. Chapter 15

“Just leave me here ta die.”

“You’re not dying, you big baby,” Katherine informs the moaning blanket-covered lump where her boyfriend used to be. “It’s just the stomach flu. I brought you a Gatorade.”

“Izzit the yellow kind?”

“Would I dare bring any other kind into this apartment?”

A hand emerges from the blanket nest and makes gimme motions. Katherine opens the bottle, plunks a straw in, and hands it over. Slurping noises soon follow.

“Don’t drink it so fast,” Katherine warns. “You’ll just throw it back up.”

“Thirsty,” the blanketed lump tells her. “Gotta, whatsit, replace my electrolytes. ‘S important.”

“Yes, it is, but if you just guzzle it you’re gonna – "

A groan cuts her off, and then a weak, miserable, “Kathy? I think I’m gonna be sick again.”

She does not say _I told you so_.


	16. Chapter 16

“Ma wants to know what ya want for yer birthday.”

Katherine shrieks a little, clutching a hand to her chest. “Don’t sneak up on me like that, Al! God. Where did you even come from?”

“Sorry,” Albert says, sounding only mildly apologetic. “But seriously, whatcha want? Ma keeps askin’ me for gift ideas.”

“You…do know she’s not actually your mother, right?”

“She’s the closest I’s had since I was four,” he says. Katherine says nothing, because it’s true. Her mother is fond of all the boys, but dotes on Albert, who’d lived with nearly a dozen different foster families until the last one kicked him out at eighteen. That she already has six children is of no consequence to Kate Pulitzer.

It’s had the added benefit of easing the strain between mother and daughter that’s been there since Lucy’s death. Katherine hadn’t realized how much she’d missed their old closeness until, thanks in no small part to Al, they got it back.

“I don’t want any stuff,” she says. “A mom-daughter lunch would be nice, though. Maybe a spa day?”

“I’ll let her know.”


	17. Chapter 17

**_CHAT GROUP: SECOND TO NONE_ **

**Churchill Downs:** you guys it’s adopt a shelter pet day

 **King of Brooklyn:** no

 **Davey Jones’ Locker:** no

 **Jackie Boy:** no

 **Muckety-Muck:** hell no

 **Uptown Girl:** Race you live in a dorm

 **Uptown Girl:** I mean, yeah, it’s messy enough you could probably hide a hamster or something in there but not a cat or dog

 **Churchill Downs:** hurtful

 **Churchill Downs:** I cleaned yesterday

 **Muckety-Muck:** shoving your dirty clothes under my bed doesn’t count as cleaning

 **Uptown Girl:** Race why

 **Muckety-Muck:** I did all the work cause I’m nice like that but it still smells like a horse died in here, Sis

 **Uptown Girl:** did you take out the trash?

 **Muckety-Muck:** yes

 **Uptown Girl:** you want me to bring you a bottle of Febreze when we meet Mom for lunch?

 **Muckety-Muck:** yes

 **Muckety-Muck:** what time is that again

 **Uptown Girl:** 1:30

 **Jackie Boy:** hey Dave look at this dog [link]

 **Davey Jones’ Locker:** Jack no

 **Jackie Boy:** but we ain’t in a dorm

 **Jackie Boy:** our landlord allows pets

 **Jackie Boy:** look at that face, Dave

 **Jackie Boy:** are you looking

 **Davey Jones’ Locker:** help me out here, Kath

 **Uptown Girl:** …that dog is awfully cute, Davey

 **Uptown Girl:** and senior animals are a lot less likely to be adopted

 **Davey Jones’ Locker:** you’re supposed to be the sensible one

 **Uptown Girl:** you must have me confused with somebody whose big ideas didn’t get her arrested last summer

 **Uptown Girl:** look at the dog, Dave

 **Davey Jones’ Locker:** oy vey

 **Davey Jones’ Locker:** what’s the rescue’s number

 **Davey Jones’ Locker:** I’ll call and talk to them

 **Jackie Boy:** \o/


	18. Chapter 18

Katherine groans and burrows deeper into the blankets on Jack’s bed.

“I don’t wanna.”

“’S just your sisters,” Jack says. “How bad c’n they be?”

“They’ll report back to our parents and then I’ll get a call from my father telling me how disappointed he is and that Pulitzers aren’t supposed to _settle_.” She belatedly realizes she’s said all of that into her pillow and Jack probably didn’t understand a word, which is borne out a second later when he tugs the blankets away from her head.

“What?” He’s adorable when he’s confused. Like a puppy.

“I said they’re only visiting so they can narc on me later, and then I’ll get yelled at for my _poor life choices_.”

Jack processes this, and then: “I’ll call ‘em and tell ‘em you’s under the weather, if ya want.”

She doesn’t even hesitate before rattling off Connie’s number, and then buries herself in the covers again. Jack’s left hand finds hers, and his voice drifts over her as he spins the little white lie for her sisters.

“Yeah, I’ll have ‘er call when she’s feelin’ better. Sorry we hadta cancel. Uh-huh…yeah…got it. Bye.”

A moment later he joins her in her blanket cocoon. “Baby, I don’t think it worked.”

“What’d she have to say?”

“She wants photographic proof that you’s actually sick an’ I ain’t some crazy person who’s kidnapped you or somethin’.”

“She watches too many cop dramas,” Katherine sighs. “Send her this.”

She sits up and pretends to rub her temples with both middle fingers. Jack, cackling, retrieves his phone, snaps the picture, and sends it off.

Seconds later Connie texts Katherine’s phone. **I knew you weren’t sick. You owe me for this.**

Katherine tells her, _I’ll babysit that deranged cotton ball you pretend is a dog the next time you’re out of town if you continue to play along._

**Deal. Love you, Kitty.**

_You too._

She really does love her siblings. She just…prefers them at a distance, is all. It’s easier that way.


	19. Chapter 19

“Kath?”

“Yeah?”

She’s lying on her bed the wrong way ‘round, sock-clad feet just brushing up against the pillows. Albert’s on the floor, head tipped back against the corner of the bed as he studies the vaguely cat-shaped water stain on the ceiling of Kath’s cramped studio apartment.

“D’you think I should…I mean, d’you think Ma would want to…” Damn it, why is this so hard? He’s already out to the guys, and to the girl beside him whose brow he can _hear_ furrowing. He’s introduced them all to Finch already. Doing it all over again one more time should be a piece of cake.

Kath pokes at his shoulder until he rolls his head to the side to look at her.

“I think you should finish at least one sentence, is what I think,” she says. He sighs heavily and tries to gather his thoughts.

“What do you think Ma would say if I told ‘er about…about me ‘n’ Finch?” he finally asks. Kath’s gaze softens.

“She’d be happy for you, just like the rest of us are.”

“How do you know?” She seems so sure of her answer that he has to ask.

“Because when I introduced her to my girlfriend in high school she got _this close_ to shouting it from the rooftops.”

That…is definitely news to him. “You’re bi?”

“Mm-hmm.” Her eyes go distant. “Grace Turner. She asked me out three months before Lucy died, and stuck by me as long as she could handle it after.”

She clears her throat. “But enough about me. We’ve got to plan how you’re going to tell Mom.”

He hopes it’ll be as easy as she says.


	20. Chapter 20

**Race:** _(02:13)_ KATHY

 **Kathy:** _(02:27)_ no

 **Kathy:** _(02:27)_ go to bed

 **Race:** _(02:28)_ but i need help

 **Kathy:** _(02:29)_ if you’re hurt, call 911

 **Kathy:** _(02:29)_ otherwise iT CAN WAIT

 **Race:** _(02:30)_ no it cant

 **Race:** _(02:30)_ i dont kno what to get spot for his birthday

 **Kathy:** _(02:35)_ fuck’s sake

 **Kathy:** _(02:36)_ why is this my problem

 

 **Jack:** _(02:38)_ race i s2g

 **Jack:** _(02:38)_ go to bed and quit pestering Kath

 **Jack:** _(02:38)_ don’t u have a final in like six hours

 **Racer:** _(02:39)_ ...shit

 

 **Jack <3:** _(02:39)_ problem solved

 **Ace of Hearts:** _(02:39)_ ...I’m right next to you, Jack

 **Ace of Hearts:** _(02:39)_ you could have just. said that out loud

 **Jack <3:** _(02:39)_ [shrug emoji]

 

 **Al** to **Jack, Roommate Higgins,** and **Sis** : _(02:40)_ if I fail any of my finals bc I didn’t get enough sleep I’m gonna kill each and every one of you


	21. Chapter 21

Jack, born and bred city boy that he is, has never been hiking before. Katherine had taken that into consideration when planning this excursion-slash-break from her mom’s family, but he’s still complaining.

“I don’t get it,” she says. “You walk all the time in the city.”

“Yeah, but there ain’t so many tree roots in my way in the city.”

Katherine sighs. “If it’s really that big of a problem, you can go back and wait by the nature center.”

“Noooo,” he says. “Don’t leave me.”

“We’ll be out of the forest soon,” she says, though she’s not entirely sure. She only knows this trail from online reviews.

She turns out to be right. It’s not long before the trees give way to a wide expanse of granite, dotted with little pools of water and cairns that mark the way ahead. It’s beautiful, even on a chilly gray day like this.

“Better?” she asks.

“Better,” he nods.


	22. Chapter 22

In the summer, Jack and Davey bring home an opinionated dachshund mix. Miss Belle, as she comes to be known, likes snuggles and kisses and the warm, sunny spot next to the front window. She likes her soft bed with its matching blanket, a belated homecoming gift from Kate of all people. (The word “grand-dog” comes up. The following week, Katherine gives her a coffee mug that declares her the _Best Dog Grandma Ever_ ).

Miss Belle’s most favorite thing, however, is a sleep shirt of Katherine’s that lives more or less permanently in one of Jack’s dresser drawers. She steals it out of the laundry basket every chance she gets, removing it to her little bed in the living room to ensure maximum shed-hair coverage.

Katherine eventually gives up. The shirt’s at least a decade old anyway; if Miss Belle wants it that badly, she can keep it. Besides, the photo opportunities provided by her burrowing inside it like a sleeping bag and sticking her head out of a sleeve are too good to pass up.

“I’m sending that to Mom,” Katherine laughs. “She’ll love it.”

“Send it ta the group, too,” Jack says. The boys all love Miss Belle – even Sean, though he’ll never admit it in a million years. She loves them all back, and thrives under the attention she gets. It hasn’t taken her long to do a 180 from the nervous, sad-eyed pup they’d first met through a cage door at the shelter; now she’s happy as a dog can be.


	23. Chapter 23

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> With this, we get into new content. Please enjoy.

In the end, Albert finds, it’s exactly as Kath said it would be. Ma gives him a hug, shakes Finch’s hand, and smiles benevolently at the two of them all through lunch. When they leave the little café, Ma going one way and them going the other, his shoulders slump as the tension drains out of him.

Because it doesn’t matter that Kath had promised, with fierce conviction, that Ma would be as loving and supportive as ever. It doesn’t even matter that he’s done this before. He thinks he’ll always be afraid of getting the same reaction he’d gotten from the foster parents he was with when he first figured himself out. So far that hasn’t happened, but...well. One bad apple, et cetera.

“You okay?” Finch asks.

“Yeah, ‘m fine.”

His phone buzzes with a text.

 **Sis:** _(02:06)_ _How’d it go?_

He slips his phone back in his pocket. Texting and walking don’t mix very well for him or anyone else in their circle of friends; he’s personally had to yank Race back onto the sidewalk by his collar no less than seven times this year alone. Kath will understand if he waits a little while to answer.

He and Finch walk on, shoulders not quite touching.


	24. Chapter 24

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's definitely a theme to the stuff I've written lately, but it is that time of year.

Al cheers like his life depends on it when Kath walks across the stage a brand-new college grad. Ma and Edie, the only Pulitzers who could make it to the actual ceremony, stick to a more reasonable volume. Katherine shakes her head and might roll her eyes, not that he can tell across the distance.

To be fair, he’d done much the same for Spot and Davey and Jack earlier in the roster. Kath’s the last one, for which he’s privately grateful, because his throat’s starting to hurt. The remainder of the ceremony passes fairly quickly, and then it’s a matter of trying to locate each other in the sea of celebrating graduates and proud relatives.

Kath finds them first, towing Spot along with her by the sleeve of his robe. He complains about this even through the grin he can’t quite suppress, but it’s hard to hear what exactly he says in all the excitement around them. Ma hugs Kath tight, then relinquishes her to a smiling Edie, who in turn passes her over to Al.

“Proud o’ you,” he says into her coppery curls. She squeezes him and lets go, turning to scan the crowd for Jack and Davey.

\--

There’s a celebration for all four of the grads at the Pulitzers’ brownstone. Al’s been here plenty of times before, but it still makes him nervous. Ma’s furniture is a mix of really high-end stuff and heirlooms of greater sentimental than monetary value, and he’s careful not to slouch against the back of the living room sofa.

Kath, born to this life, has no such qualms. She throws herself onto the nearby chaise, for all the world like a swooning nineteenth-century lady; only Al’s sure that nineteenth-century ladies didn’t drink rum and Coke or swear like sailors.

“Thank fuck that’s over,” she says, putting her glass on the windowsill next to her. “It’ll be your turn next, and I’ll be the one yelling my head off in the audience when they call your name.”

He doesn’t get a chance to respond before they’re joined by everyone else and the party begins in earnest.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I haven't really sat down and worked out everyone's ages in this AU, but Al, Race, Specs, Finch, and Mush are the next oldest after the new grads.


	25. Chapter 25

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Inspired by the fact that Netflix did a bad thing by adding Two Towers and Return of the King today, and I watched them back to back because I have no chill when it comes to visiting Middle-earth.
> 
> Fun fact: the extended edition of the trilogy runs 686 minutes, or 11.4 hours.

**_CHAT GROUP: SECOND TO NONE_ **

**Uptown Girl:** you’re all dead to me

 **Uptown Girl:** and as soon as I can move you might be dead for real

 **Domino Sugar:** I told you guys that watching the entire extended Lord of the Rings trilogy in one sitting was a bad idea, but no one ever listens to me.

 **King of Brooklyn:** see, you say that, but you’re the one who started looking for a lembas recipe the minute we decided to do this

 **Uptown Girl:** I think I’ve fused with the floor

 **Churchill Downs:** no that’s just the soda u spilled when haldir died

 **Jackie Boy:** goddammit Race you know better than to mention that

 **Uptown Girl:** ;_;

 **Muckety-Muck:** why is there a handful of sour patch kids in the pocket of my jeans

 **Muckety-Muck:** who’s responsible for this

 **Davey Jones’ Locker:** you are

 **Davey Jones’ Locker:** I tried to stop you, but you said, quote, “shut the hell your mouth, I’m savin’ ‘em for later” and put them in your pocket

 **Muckety-Muck:** well wHY DIDN’T YOU TRY HARDER

 **Muckety-Muck:** they’re all gross and linty now

 **Mrs. P.:** Children, it’s 2:45 in the morning on a Sunday. You’re all in the same room. Please stop texting each other, because I cannot take any more notifications, and go. To. Sleep.

 **Uptown Girl:** who added Mom to the group

 **Mrs. P.:** Medda did. I expect the basement to be cleaned up before you leave.


	26. Chapter 26

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And today we come to the end of the Got-Dang College AU. As much as I'd love to continue it indefinitely, alas, that is not to be.

Katherine leaves the sterile private room, her goodbyes said, and bypasses her family entirely. She cannot last out this vigil with them, especially since no one quite knows when it will end. Father’s clock could run down tonight or tomorrow or as long as a week from now, and she can’t be here when it does. She’s not strong enough.

The traffic is hellish this time of day, but she hails a taxi to take her home. When she finally gets there, the apartment is full nearly to bursting with her other family. Miss Medda and Jack are in the kitchen, but the former leaves her post at the stove to wrap Katherine up in a hug that lasts a good two minutes.

She doesn’t say anything. No one does, and Katherine’s grateful. She’s likely to fall apart at a single gentle word. When Miss Medda lets her go, she slips down the hallway to the bedroom she shares with Jack and raids his clothes for a shirt and sweatpants that swamp her.

On any other day, the warm, garlicky aroma of whatever it is Jack and Medda are making for dinner would make her mouth water. Today it just makes her feel sick. She hasn’t had much of an appetite since Father was admitted.

She shuts the bedroom door and covers her face with her hands.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you have enjoyed this AU, please leave a comment! Heck, leave comments on old chapters if you want. I'll read and treasure all of them.


End file.
